Overwhelming Friendship
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: Suppose it was just an overwhelming friendship? Oneshot.


**A.N:** OK, for all the Harry Potter whizzes out there who most likely KNOW that Professor Merrythought was the D.A.D.A teacher LONG before the standing death eaters were at Hogwarts, shoot me. Said Harry Potter whizzes must also know that the closest other D.A.D.A teacher was Tom Riddle, and he didn't even get the place. Then after that was the Quirrel guy in the turban. SO WHO KNOWS WHO TAUGHT D.A.D.A IN THE SEVENTIES???? For now, I'm pretending it was Merrythought. So we're just having a bit of a time-lapse and she's older than Dumbledore (which she was originally) but not old enough to teach him, meaning he's the headteacher but...yeah you get it. KTHXBAI. :) :)

* * *

Professor Merrythought enjoyed teaching Defence Against The Dark Arts. It was a...well, most would say, a _practical _lesson. But her increasing age would often lead to her having to sit out many intensive lessons, where students would be throwing spells and disarms at one another. Her sitting out would often lead to trouble.

"Crouch!" Merrythought's shriek ran the blood cold of every student listening, their wands clattering to the desks. Barty Crouch Junior, supporting a cringing Evan Rosier by the hair, looked back at the wrinkled teacher questioningly, practically ignorant to the mess he'd caused on a classmate. Rosier's facial features had exceeded in size alarmingly, his cheeks bloated, his lips puffy, his eyelids sagging. "What part of my lesson did I tell you to hex?"

"None, Professor," Barty replied sullenly, his grip loosening on snivelling boy.

"Why are you hexing and not disarming, Crouch?" She continued.

Barty opened his mouth to retaliate, but Rosier was quicker. "Crouch failed to disarm me, Professor." Evans' cocky, swollen smirk was quickly wiped free of his face when Barty curled his fist tightly back around the boys hair.

"So your high, typical, Slytherin ego resulted in the malforming of Mr Rosier's face, Crouch?"

Barty looked sideways and made a snarling noise, low in his throat. "Yes."

Merrythought was grabbing for her knarled, ancient wooden stick, hoisting herself to a standing position with it, and making her way through the rows of desks to Barty. "I don't like Slytherin," she explained. "I never did like Slytherin. My headteacher was Slytherin."

The green-tied proportion of the class eyed her in disgust. Gryffindors grinned and bore gloating smiles to the opposite side of the class, whereas the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs watched the aged teacher in earnest.

"_Phineas Black._" Her eyes lingered on a certain boy of that relative surname, but soon flickered back to Barty, continuing what seemed like a year-long travel to his desk. "_Slytherin_. Egotistical, conceited, self-centred _Slytherin_." She slammed the base of he stick down on Barty's desk, making him flinch with such force, he practically threw Rosier across the table. "In my lessons, whether Dumbledore agrees to my punishment methods or not, we will learn that narcissism and insolence are not the way to a _happy learning environment_." Merrythought smacked the wooden tabletop with the stick on each of those three final words, leaning closer and closer towards Barty, until he could smell the typical odor of old women, pumpkin stew and cats. "Isn't that right, Crouch?"

"That's right, professor," Barty replied, swallowing his dry tongue.

She pointed her stick to an ominous looking, black cupboard in the very corner, of the very front of the room, just beneath the stairs leading to the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher office. "On you go."

With an inward groan, Barty stood up and made the walk of shame towards the haunting piece of furniture. It was practically laughing at him. In his head, Barty counted how many times he'd actually made this same walk, to the same cupboard, in the same lesson. He regretted it as he trudged slowly along towards the cupboard, because it always ended in the same thing.

It wasn't some horrific ghoul ready to smite him; a boggart prepared to relive some childhood nightmare. No, the cupboard wasn't even magically enhanced, it was just that; a cupboard. It was what happened _in _the cupboard.

Barty closed the heavy door behind him and revelled in the loneliness and serenity, the peacefulness and darkness of the inside of the cupboard. The door was locked heftily with Merrythought's soft mutter of "_Colloportus_....come on! On with the disarming!" And the class continued the babble of giddy talk and high-pitched shouts of spells. Barty held his hand up to his face. He really couldn't see anything. He was unaware how _big _the cupboard was when his arms were firmly by his sides, until he stuck either one out and his palms came into contact with the stiff walls.

After ten minutes of boredom - his wand was left in the classroom, on his desk - Merrythoughts voice rose again. Barty didn't even have to hear the name or the familiar rant - Merrythought had a separate rant for each student of her class - to know who was in trouble. He deliberately got himself into trouble, after Barty got into trouble, just so he could make the same walk of shame, though, to him, it was more a walk of triumph.

"Alohomora," came Regulus Black's smooth tone, the lock clicking and the door swinging open. He stepped inside, waiting for it to close and be magically locked again before reaching for his wand, momentarily ignoring Barty, who was pressed up against the opposite wall of the cupboard. "_Mufflato," _he muttered, a small trail of light emitting from his wand. Regulus had thought ahead, as usual, and remembered to stow it in his robes before getting himself into trouble.

His hand reached out, grabbing the front of Barty's robes. "Now, you self-centred, egotistical, insolent brat..." Barty didn't need to see Regulus' face to know he was smirking.

"You're such a freak.." Barty grumbled in reply as he was dragged towards the other Slytherin, who retorted with a low laugh.

"Yeah, but you never complain..." Regulus, who was slightly taller than Barty, curled an arm around his waist. "You never complain when I hold you like this..." he muttered softly, his head ducking and his lips brushing against Barty's ear, pressing against his skin gently. "Or kiss you like this."

Barty failed to come up with a decent retaliation.

"You like it really," the tone in Regulus' voice sounded almost childish, snapping Barty back to reality.

"You're an idiot," Barty hissed as the accused let tilted his face forwards, blocking out his words with his mouth.

And Barty melted. Like he always did.

When they broke apart, Regulus' forehead still pressed against Barty's, he tried to search for sanity in his clouded brain. All his fault, the beautiful, perfect-blooded Slytherin seeker. Sure, his brains were in his glossy looks rather than in his head, like brainy Barty, but the twelve OWLs he was taking couldn't even answer why, or what he was letting Regulus do to him.

"Black," he muttered, as Regulus' lips slid across his jaw, the side of his neck, his collar. "Black..." a sigh barely escaping his throat, as skilful hands that weren't Barty's glided across his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. "Why do you..." Barty's sentence was hardly completed before he was cut off by Regulus' dominating tongue again, his hands capturing Barty's in his own, interlocking their fingers.

The irritatingly delicate touches, the affectionate embraces, the lenient kisses; it wasn't Barty's mind that made him want to wind his arms around Regulus and pull him closer--

"TONKS! Get your hand out of Andromeda's skirt RIGHT NOW!" Came the distinguishable voice of Merrythought, causing the two to wrench apart from each other in shock. The door was ripped open, Merrythought gripping the smirking, muggle-born Ted Tonks by the scruff of his neck. Andromeda Black, Regulus' cousin, was sat a little further away than she had been previously, her hand over her mouth, face ridiculously red. Barty looked at Regulus and figured that he was only hoping Andromeda was embarrassed and mortified by the accused happenings. For Andromeda's sake as well as the bloodline. _Everyone_ knew that the Black family valued pure blood over everything, and should one of them marry a muggle-born, there would probably be hell risen.

The family would go completely crazy if Andromeda married or interacted with a Mudblood.

Almost as crazy as they would go if they knew Regulus continued to express his "overwhelming friendship" on Barty.

As they were dragged out of the cupboard to make room for Tonks, the pair struggled to keep their eyes on the ground for fear of sniggering out loud.

Suppose, it was just an overwhelming friendship?

Barty smiled.


End file.
